OFF: the truth is out there

[Carl E. Anderson]

On mån 1 dec 1997 18.34 +0000 "Ted Jackson jr. 6L6" <tojackso at LIBRARY.SYR.EDU> wrote:
> I think that society has simply gotten used to more foul language.
> Blame WWII.  The word 'fuck' was virtually unknown before the war,
> but got learned by all the draftees who dutifully brought it into
> society in general...

     Profanity comes and goes (so to speak).  "Fuck" is not exactly a new word.  Indeed most of the common "swear words" are of old and distinguished lineage.  For example, the vulgar vernacular word denoting "posterior" can be traced to a proto-Indo-European root "ors-", perhaps 6000 years old, meaning "arse".

     You want some real earthiness in the "recent" past (for English-speakers), head for the Elizabethan period  :)

DrinkFeckArseGirls,
Carl

--
Carl Edlund Anderson
Dept. of Anglo-Saxon, Norse, & Celtic
St. John's College, University of Cambridge
mailto:cea20 at cus.cam.ac.uk
http://hea-www.harvard.edu/~carl/